Danish ecommerce event stops and partners with Shoptalk Europe

Total Retail, the ecommerce event of Danish ecommerce association Foreningen for Dansk Internet Handel, will cease to operate. Members of FDIH will instead be invited to attend Shoptalk Europe, a large ecommerce event which will be held in Copenhagen on 9, 10 and 11 October.

Niels Ralund, director of FDIH, announced the news on the association’s website. In the blog post, Ralund says Total Retail 2016 was a blast of a conference, with the organization welcoming more participants than ever before. ” Yet we have something new for this year. In fact, it’s quite drastically” he writes, after which he announces Total Retail will cease to exist.

“We received an offer, to which we couldn’t say no”, he wrote. That offer came from serial entrepreneur Anil Aggarwal, who launched the event Money 20/20 in the US and Europe and started with the ecommerce event Shop Talk in the US last year. He will now organize this event in Europe for the first time.

FDIH will now support Shoptalk Europe and as part of this support, its own event will cease to operate. “The Shoptalk event collides with our planned ecommerce conference. Both we and Shoptalk believe that this will inhibit both events, because we would compete strongly for the same Danish participants”, Ralund explains.

Cooperating with Shoptalk

“That’s why we started talking with Shoptalk, which from the start expressed their interest to cooperate with us. We are proud of that. But it’s also an ambivalent feeling, because we are also very proud of our own conference.” After long and much deliberation the ecommerce association decided to cooperate. “It’s because this can boost our ecommerce event, FDIH and the Danish ecommerce industry for the benefit of our members.”

Katy Fryatt, managing director of Shoptalk Europe, says she’s thrilled to be working with FDIH. “We value their support in ensuring the participation of the Scandinavian retail and ecommerce community in Shoptalk Europe” , she says. “To date, it’s been easy to assume that differences in culture, language, laws and regulations across Europe limit the value of a pan-European dialogue. However, these differences pale in comparison to the similarities that both the establishment and start-ups face in preparing for the next generation of retail and ecommerce in Europe.”